Confidentialised Unit Record Files (CURFs) are released in accordance with the conditions specified in the Statistics Determination section of the Census and Statistics Act 1905 (CSA). This ensures that confidentiality is maintained whilst enabling micro level data to be released. More information on the confidentiality practices associated with CURFs can be found at the "How is CURF data confidentialised?" page.

For information on the institutional environment of the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS), including the legislative obligations of the ABS, financing and governance arrangements, and mechanisms for scrutiny of ABS operations, please see ABS Institutional Environment.

RELEVANCE

The Characteristics of Recent Migrants 2010 CURF is an Expanded CURF. The CURF contains information on persons who were born overseas, arrived in Australia after 2000, were aged 15 years and over on arrival, who had obtained permanent Australian resident status, as well as people who were temporary residents of Australia for 12 months or more. Persons holding New Zealand citizenship and those who held Australian citizenship prior to their arrival in Australia were excluded, while other persons born in New Zealand were included. The type of information collected included socio-demographic characteristics (such as age, sex and birthplace), employment characteristics (such as labour force status, occupation and industry), educational qualifications obtained (such as level and field, both before coming to Australia to live and since arriving in Australia) and migration information (such as visa category and residency status on arrival to live in Australia and as at November 2010). New data items collected in 2010 included whether would have preferred to work longer hours in first job in Australia, main reason not actively looking for work and main language spoken on arrival.

The CURF is generally released within six months after the release of an initial summary publication.

ACCURACY

TheCharacteristics of Recent Migrants 2010CURF contains individual person level data (unit record). Along with unit record data, the CURF contains finer levels of detail of data items than what is otherwise published. For more information on the level of detail provided in the CURF, please see the file6250055001_DATA_ITEM_LISTING_CORMS10E.XLS.
Steps to confidentialise the data made available on the CURF are taken in such a way as to maximise the usefulness of the content while maintaining the confidentiality of respondents to ABS statistical collections. As a result, it may not be possible to exactly reconcile all the statistics produced from the CURF with published statistics.

While changes between 2004 and 2007 resulted in data not being comparable only minor development occurred for the 2010 survey. As such the 2007 and 2010 CURF survey results are comparable. For a more detailed discussion on the differences between the surveys see theTechnical Manual - Characteristics of Recent Migrants, Expanded CURF, Nov 2010 (cat. no. 6250.0.55.001):Using the CURF data.

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